The Empire of the Senses Read Online Free

Theurgency and uneasiness he felt melded into another dream, in which his mother would not let him wash his hands before dinner, forbidding him to use the same sink basin as she. When Lev asked why, she called him a Jew in disguise as a goy, and she grimaced when she said this, half smiling, half taunting. Lev froze, his hands outstretched before him.
    He woke up with the sun bright on his face, his hands outstretched as if carrying something sacred, a tallith, or a Torah wrapped in embroidered velvet. A man leaned over him, trying to jam the window farther down, cursing the stubborn wooden frame. Lev peered up at his unshaven chin. It was an odd sight, made odder when the man vigorously shook his head in disapproval, the skin hanging from his chin swinging back and forth. Dazzled by the bright sun coming through the trees, Lev’s eyes watered, blurring the sight of men milling about, spitting morning phlegm out the windows, scratching themselves, sharing cigarettes. The man above him cursed and stared down at Lev. His eyes were savage, bloodshot. “Does this damn window open any farther? It’s sweltering.”
    Lev got up. He still felt the light warmth of the red-haired woman’s body. They pushed down the window in a joint effort. The man grunted with satisfaction when gusts of hot wind blew into their faces. He poked his head out the window, grinning through his unruly mustache, and said, “Smells like horse shit and burning fields.”
    Lev grinned back, not wanting to betray his fear. He smelled fire. “Are we near the front?”
    The man basked in the wind, his hair wild around his face.
    Lev rested his forearms on the window ledge, almost touching the other man’s elbow. He asked again, “Are we near the front?”
    “Who knows?” the man said into the wind.
    Gradually, the lushness and green protection of the forest grew sparse. Acres and acres of farmland on either side of the train had been scorched, burned out by the Russians before their retreat. Along the road, destroyed houses were bullet-ridden, and in the remaining potato fields, Lev saw oblong little mounds with wooden crosses stuck into them, helmets on top, cocked to the side. If the other man saw thehelmets, he didn’t let on. Lev could tell they were German helmets because of their pointed spikes catching the light. They passed through towns filled with deserted houses, no one on the streets, the gutters full of horse manure. A few starving cows blinked from a field. Lev breathed into his sleeve, the smell of manure and ash overpowering. Diaphanous farmhouses followed one after another as if ghostly bones hung languidly in midair. The man pointed to a broken-down doorway, and then a person appeared, gripping the wooden door frame, only to vomit on the doorstep before retreating back inside. The man grinned again, as if the burnt fields and the people left behind already proved a German victory. He held out a cigarette.
    “Thank you,” Lev said, surprised at how the man lit it, with the courtesy of a headwaiter. The train stalled. “Perhaps we’re here.”
    The man shrugged, unconvinced.
    Lev hoped this might be their stopping place, as the redness of the sun sadly vibrating through the fir trees struck him as beautiful. Beside the train tracks, two women wielded picks in the potato fields, backing away from the ground with alarming force before plunging into the soil again. One of the women looked up at him with eyes as black as prunes, and Lev detected both reproach and fear in her glance. The other woman paid them no notice, as if the bouts of bloody turmoil, whether it was the Russians or the Germans or the French or another invading group, were always occurring and would continue to occur. The way she wielded her pick said this much, radiating a passive acceptance of tragedy, an enduring knowledge that it was not that this one terrible thing had happened to her, but terrible things were always happening. Her passivity was galling, an affront